Hop Dust Recirculation......?

[snowveil]

For those who've caught the recent Eel River Brewing episode of The Session ( http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/session-eel-river-brewing-co/, ~2:13 in)

They mention a dry hopping technique that involves recirculating pulverized hop pellets through a beer to quickly and completely expose it to all of the hop oils available. He talks about how it completely revolutionized the way he dry hops at the brewery, and the effect it has on the resulting beer.

This got me thinking...couldn't you use the new Blichmann Quickcarb along with a keg with a slightly cut-off dip tube as a dry hopping tank with this method? The issues I could see would be a) preventing oxygen ingress, and b) best practices for pulverizing the hops before tossing the dust in the keg.

My theoretical process would be:

Ferment, cold crash, and rack to a co2 purged keg with a slightly cut off dip tube.

Crush your dry hop regimen in a co2 flushed bag with a rolling pin.

Toss in your hop dust, hit with another blast of co2, then begin recirculation with the diaphragm pump and low levels of co2 through the airstone just to prevent oxygen from getting into the system.

Run system for maybe an hour or two

Cold crash again to settle out the hops, then push with co2 to another co2 flushed serving keg

I've been waffling over the Blichmann Quickcarb but didn't see the cost justification just to carbonate...however if this seems like a viable dry hopping solution then it might be worth while.

Thoughts?

 

[Dcpcooks]

It's a relatively small connection at the hoses plus the poppets on the keg are restricted. I'd be very hesitant to run pellets through the unit. I'm also not sure how the pump would handle the grit of hops. It's worth a try but I'll wait for someone else to try it.

Oxygenation would not be a problem as it's a sealed and purged unit.
You might be able to run it through a chugger pump without many problems. Again the poppets may clog up quickly.

Btw the quick carb is a great tool for the job. I used my friends several times and then pulled the trigger on one.

 

[DemonsRun]

Maybe if you put the Dip tube in a screen and just re-circulate the beer.

 

[WiscoBrewer]

I'm definitely intrigued by this. As far as clogging the poppets, why not just remove them along with a screen over your dip tube? The thing that concerns me is plugging up the pump, but anything that gets through the screen should pass through the pump. I would also remove the CO2 stone. Obviously a good PBW flush would be needed. Another idea would be to put an inline filter just before the pump, but would all this filtering negate the desired results?

 

[Queequeg]

My experience with recirculation with dry hopping gave very good results. However its easy for air to get in and hence the aroma was stable.

You could however connect this system to the hop rocket filled with hops. You would need to purge everything through and fit a filter for pellets but that could work.

 

[DNelson]

You could however connect this system to the hop rocket filled with hops.

I had this same idea and a search led me here. It would be the homebrew version of Sierra Nevada's torpedo system.
If anyone gives this a shot please post your results. I plan on getting a Quickcarb to experiment with in the near future.

 

[cabron99]

I use a hop rocket to dry hop. Just fit a hop sock over the existing whole hop filter and transfer from keg to keg using about 20lbs of CO2. Once into an empty keg and back seems to be enough.

pao

BTW the pellets dissolve almost instantly.